Richard
Alderman
spoke at the University of Cantabria in SantanderSpain,
as part of the 10th anniversary of their consumer arbitration
program. The Center for Consumer Law has entered into an international
consortium with the university and several other schools with consumer law
programs. He also gave two presentations on consumer myths and attorney’s fees
at the State Bar Commercial and Consumer Law Program. The teacher’s manual for
his consumer law casebook was published by Imprimatur Press.

Aaron Bruhl presented a
paper entitled “Burying the Continuing Body Theory of the Senate” at the
University of Texas School of Law.

Seth Chandler chaired an
American Bar Association site visit to OklahomaUniversityLawSchool
on November 2-5. As a member of the Texas Health Care Policy Council, a
statutory body under chapter 113 of the Texas Health and Safety Code, he has
submitted a written dissent – the first in the history of the council – to the
report “Optimizing Pharmaceutical Purchasing in Texas.” He has published a Demonstration
titled “Post-Event Bonding” at

Victor Flatt hosted an
Environmental, Energy, and Natural Resources Workshop on Carbon Trading systems
in the U.S.
and EU at American University Washington College of Law on November 14.
Participants included the House Energy & Commerce Committee, the British
Embassy, the PewCenter, and academics from several
schools. Professor Flatt was mentioned in a Houston Chronicle editorial as
someone that the Obama Administration needs to talk to concerning energy policy
in the new administration. On December 8, Professor Flatt spoke to the CO2
Sixth Annual EOR carbon management workshop on carbon sequestration and climate
change legislation. He will be a keynote speaker (discussing climate change)
for the Texas Changing Economic Climate in Austin on January 29, 2009.

Craig Joyce attended the
American Society for Legal History Annual Meeting in Ottawa
as Chair of the Society’s Committee on Conferences and the Annual Meeting,
where he announced the selection of Dallas
as the site of the 2009 meeting. Professor Joyce also spoke on copyright to the
Greater Houston Heights Bar Association and, with other leading national
authorities in copyright law, judged ASCAPS’s annual Nathan Burkan Student
Paper Competition.

Joan Krause was
interviewed on November 18 by Medical Newspapers about the ongoing controversy
over the “Stark Law” and physician self-referral limitations.

Dean Raymond
Nimmer
contributed an article to a book, Defis du Droit a la Protection de la Vie
Privee – Challenges of Privacy and Data Protection Law, which has been
published by Bruylat, Belgium.

Michael Olivas
was
appointed to one new editorial advisory board and re-appointed to three of the
20 on which he has served – the new SSRN Educational Law Journal and the Sage
Publications, Inc., Handbook of Higher Education, 4th edition; the
Review of Higher Education; and the Journal of College and University Law. In
addition, he served as the Chair of the Advisory Board for the PBS project on A
Class Apart: Hernandez v. Texas,
which will appear on public television (and in fine bookstores and video stores
everywhere), in February. Professor Olivas appears in the documentary, speaking
of the 1954 case on which his 2006 book, Colored Men and Hombres Aqui, was
based.

Jordan Paust, with
Professor Tony D’Amato, published an Op Ed entitled “Obama Has Duty to Go After
War Criminals” in the Chicago Sun-Times, December 3, at page 26. A similar Op
Ed by Professors Paust and D’Amato appeared in the December 7 Philadelphia Inquirer, page C5, and is
available at:

Spencer Simons’ article “What
Interests are Served When Academic Law Library Directors are Tenured Law
Faculty? An Analysis and Proposal” was published in the June 2008 issue of the
Journal of Legal Education.

Jacqueline
Weaver
guest-lectured in an energy seminar class at the University of Texas Law School
on November 11. She spoke on the future of the petroleum industry in a time of
global warming and global markets.

Stephen Zamora was appointed
to the AALS Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure, a nine-person,
quasi-adjudicatory body that considers complaints from faculty members that
allege either discrimination in a manner prohibited by AALS bylaws, or a
violation of academic freedom rights.